In what was a crazy year with much uncertainty, one thing which remained consistent was the support from this fantastic community. From the buzz of an engaging network via CS Workplace, the warm welcome received when joining and the quick support to any questions or challenges to help the day in the life of a CSM – the Customer Success Network for me has been invaluable this year.
The move to remote work life, while initially felt a nice novelty, quickly became the new way of working and came with its challenges. For me it was being disconnected from my colleagues in the office at Poppulo, missing those face to face interactions, the coffee dock chats and social events! I had facilitated my first CS Cafe in January in Cork, Ireland with great excitement and plans for the year ahead before events moved online – and then came the digital CS cafes. CS cafes worldwide became available to register for online. What a fantastic opportunity it was to be able to connect with a CS community globally from Ireland – no travel required! As there was a whole host of recurring cafes to pick and choose from, I found it really flexible to plan them into my working week. Having the excuse to hide away in another room from parenting in the early days was another added benefit 🙂
Since March I have been attending CS cafes across the UK and Ireland and have made great connections within the Customer Success industry globally from Sweden over to India! From the beginning it was having a fellow CSM to share customer challenges and experiences with as we navigated through the uncertain times that was a real support. Discussing key trends and planned topics – from personal development, health scores right through to success planning and customer journey mapping, I have picked up fantastic insights and resources which in turn I can bring into my role working with a portfolio of enterprise clients. As one of our facilitators mentioned at a cafe this month when reflecting on their year – “these sessions for me have really highlighted the importance of community throughout”.
It’s busy times for everyone in CS at the moment, and it can be difficult to fit in other external events outside of the day to day – but I have found that setting aside the time in my diary for CSN events has been a huge support to me this year.
Maressa Mills
Check out the next CSN Cafes here!